


you, me, and the universe

by honeyspotlight



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Drama, F/M, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 13:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17346305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyspotlight/pseuds/honeyspotlight
Summary: Tomorrow. Celestial bodies will align themselves tomorrow. And astronomer Kim Mingyu is afraid of what's going to happen. Nobody ever thought the eight planets, the Sun, and the Moon will align. Not in this lifetime.The main effect that the alignment will bring is certainly unexpected. They had not researched it and had never crossed their minds. It was impossible but now, he has his long-lost Love in his arms. But only for three days.What more the universe can bring?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again! This was originally posted in AFF but I'm also posting this on AO3 now!

Planetary alignments rarely happen.That was a well-known fact around here. But just yesterday, we had found out that all eight planets, the Sun, and the Moon will align in a rare feat tomorrow.

I had come to realize that though rare, it is not impossible.

We were all appalled at our discovery. We had begun to look into the effects the alignment can do. Researches, observations, other methods—we’re constricted by our good, old friend, time.

A minute of a simple moon alignment can change tides. Anything could possibly happen between that span of a short time. What more can this happening bring?

Being an astronomer is not easy. I have got to work in my researches, observe things in a telescope, take note of changes in space, teach, travel, do a whole ton of reading, and of course, office work. We have a lot of things in our hands. It was stressful but I am having fun. This is my lifelong dream.

The wide, open space always intrigued me. The way the planets revolve around the sun, the way the stars explode, the birth and death of galactic objects—it is beautiful and simply cathartic. How can such a dark entity of matter make you feel infinite at the same time so small? How can something so far away look so near to the eyes? Why does it look it is shining when it is not? How can something be so deceitful yet so beautiful?

Blaise Pascal’s Pensees. My favorite. Since I was a student, I had never gotten tired of that book. I first read it when I was fourteen. At first, I did not understand it but I asked the help of my literature teacher. There is a specific essay that is the one I keep coming back to.

The essay talked about a man in the infinite and how little the man is compared to the whole universe. That essay inspired me further to study astronomy in college. I had been interested on what’s out there since I was a kid. I had plastic, glow-in-the-dark stars glued to my ceiling. It helped me fell asleep. It made me believe I was closer to the infinite than I could in reality.

I am happy. But then something became missing.

“Kim Mingyu,” my colleague, Wonwoo, slung an arm around my shoulder. I had always envied on how easygoing he was compared to him. He told me I used to be as carefree as he is.

Jeon Wonwoo is my closest friend since college. We were the only two Koreans in the class. Together we adjust through the pains of studying in Massachusetts. Luckily, the stars had also somehow aligned and decided that we work in the same organization.

My friend looks like a species of the feline. He has clean black hair and is a lady killer. I could never be like him.

“Hey,” I pressed my lips. The laptop was staring at me back. There were still processes not computed on the software. The refresh button is still unavailable and the data kept coming in on the tables.

Blaise Pascal was right. Man, only thinks of himself and what the others think of him but when you look at it in a larger scale, man is just a tiny speck of dust in the universe. The universe would not change if suddenly the man is not there anymore. Man is a tiny dust that when man is gone, it won’t actually make a difference. 

But what Blaise Pascal did not mention is that, a tiny dust can have a significance to any other tiny dusts. When the miniscule human beings we are will be gone, the tiny beings we are will still care and the vastness and largeness of the universe won’t match up to the enormous black hole that we feel. It’s simple science. Maybe to others we are irrelevant, maybe to others we matter. And often times than not, it’s the latter.

The tiny things have emotions bottled up inside them, consuming them. It’s called feelings. And I had them.

Love.

It is a feeling and was a name. Love was her name. Perfectly suited to her. Her name was what I felt every morning when I wake up, those same four letters are what radiates in my skin every night I go to sleep. Love. How I like it when it rolls off my tongue. I could say it again and again and never get tired.

She had long locks as dark as the galaxy, eyes the color of Venus, a personality brighter than the sun, and voice as calm as the moon. Love had ideas as countless as the stars. Love did not make feel like a tiny dust. Love made me feel like I was the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Well, the biggest supercluster in the universe. I had always told her she was my own personal ball of flame but she had always detested it. Love wanted to be my world. But I was more of an Earth than the Sun, my everything had orbited around her.

She was perfect. She was mine. She was the human embodiment of her name.

Love flew from New York to visit me in my work in Washington, D.C. I haven’t saw Love in a week and I already missed her. Love was a great teacher and handled the kids very well. Everyone loved Love and Love was generous to everyone.

Love called me before boarding the plane. It was 11 pm, the perfect time to get close to the stars. Did you know the lights that we see in the night sky are dead? The stars are dead. And maybe, so was she. 

The plane had crashed. There were no survivors, only casualties. The plane never malfunctioned as proven by the retrieved black box. There were no S.O.S sent, no red flags for help, no nothing. There had been surrounding theories that the upcoming eclipse on the next day had something to do with it. I am an astronomer. If an eclipse is dangerous, we are sure to send out some warning not to travel. People like to think. Sometimes too much that they miss the mark.

Love never made it to me. Love’s body has never been found along with thirteen others. I only wished that she admired the sky before she went. Did she had mistaken New York lights for celestial beings?

I’d like to think she just came too close to the stars that she had become one.


	2. the second.

A minute is all that is left for the grandest space moment of the history. All of us astronomers working for the agency are here. Many are not supposed to be on duty today but decided to come because they wanted to be here when the alignment happens.

Venus is my favorite planet. It was named after the goddess of love and beauty. When I first saw Love, I thought she resembled Venus, especially her eyes are the same brown color like that of the planet, but, when I got to know Love more, I realized she wasn’t Venus. Love was Minerva. She was the goddess of wisdom.

The alignment will only last for exactly three minutes only, it is significantly shorter than that of a solar eclipse that can last for seven minutes. Still for a short time, it is worth it.

Wonwoo had sat beside me as the fabric of his shirt brushed with my bare arms. “Who would have thought this was possible, huh?” He munches on bite-sized churros he had bought from the first-floor cafeteria. I send him a slight smile while he puts the box of food in front of me. I was not in the mood for sweet treats.

I can only wish I could be beside Love at this very moment. She loved eclipses and other extraordinary things that could be witnessed in this reality. We did not watch the total solar eclipse together last year. August 21, 2017. When the sun was eclipsing, she called me to say how beautiful the space and the world is. That she wished I was with her. And I told her, I wished for that too. I told her she was more beautiful than any eclipse. She still is.

“Wow,” Wonwoo smiles and glances in my direction. He was waiting for any emotion I can invoke. Today wasn’t his lucky day. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he continues on grinning.

Here in the space center we have a large observatory shaped like a dome, the ceiling was made with the strongest glass. We are hamsters in a semi-circle cage. There are machines and telescopes everywhere, papers are also scattered everywhere. Astronomers are not the cleanest people you will meet.

There are two large screens in front of us. The left side shows the view here from the Earth and the right screen shows the captures taken from the organization’s space shuttle.

It is remarkable. I would like to think celestial bodies have their own mind because they have different weathers, gravitational pulls, revolution, and rotation but here they are. The eight planets, the Sun, and the Moon, all aligned. The Sun is so big and is eating all of us up.

A weird phenomenon is now going on. The sky as seen on our glass dome ceiling is both night and day at the same time. What only we could do is stare at the sky with astonishment. This is unbelievable.

My fellow astronomers all look like kids going to a candy shop for a first time.  
Wonwoo’s mouth is opened wide. I was very amazed and impressed at what more the space could do. It makes me believe there is really a God and then my mind goes back to Love. If there is a God, I wish Love is taken care of anywhere she might be right now.

The sky is glittering from the glow of the Sun and the shine of the stars. The moon is idle, reflecting the sparkle. The clouds are wrapped in a black blanket but you can still see its fluffy outlines. The sky is all sorts of color, the color of the sunrise and the sunset—it is orange, pink, blue, and black. The world never looked more so confused yet so beautiful. This is a mirror image of life itself.

One of my colleagues killed the lights and we continue to gape in astonishment and awe. Then, my stomach lurched. Watching this alignment is a lot like feeling in love. It’s beautiful in the present moment but you don’t know what it could bring to the future. I was suddenly afraid, terrified. We had not researched well enough to know what this alignment would bring.

I fiddle my phone on my pocket. I wanted to search for some news. The journalists must all be in zero knowledge too because we are the source of news. I am never a believer of conspiracy theories but I’m itching to reading one right now. Of all of my fears, the fear of unknown is the scariest and right now, I’m heading to that gray zone.

Three minutes is the average length of a song. I search for a song in my brain and tried to start in the middle to no avail. I was never a musical genius. Three minutes came by fast. The sky started looking normal again. It is four in the afternoon and the heaven went back to its usual, magnificent blue.

“Wonwoo,” I call my friend beside me. He had not yet finished the box of mini-churros.

Wonwoo looks at me, his eyes gleaming with emotion. “That was astounding,” he smiles. I nod. “We still don’t know the effects of the alignment, though,” I remind him.

His mouth went from a toothy smile to a slight grimace, “so you didn’t enjoy it?”

“I did like it at first but fear took over me. What could be the possible effect?” I probably sound like an old man to him right now. Here’s my thing. I don’t like being out of my comfort zone. And as predictable what Wonwoo would say now, I still won’t follow it.

“You’re always so afraid of the unknown when there is so much left to be discovered. You should stop thinking about the future for a second and try more things,” he lightly scolds me. This is so expected of him to say. I had seen it coming.

“You know me,” that reply would suffice.

“I’m heading out early today. I have a hot date,” he winks. “Go then, have fun. I’m staying behind. I want to do research work for the effects,” I stand up and head to my desk. My desk is cluttered with failed staples and eraser trimmings. I dust them away.

“Have fun, Mingyu. And don’t work too hard!” he waves and reaches for the door. My colleagues are scrambled in all different directions now in the laboratory. I think I am the only one concerned of what’s going to come. That or I am the only one too afraid of its consequences.


	3. the third.

My bed has gotten heavier. Maybe I forgot to place my books and papers on my desk last night. Also, I should have closed the curtains. The sun is shining too bright today. If I close my eyes, I don’t see black anymore. There is a hue of light that is so similar to the rays of the sun.

I had wanted to pull the covers to protect my face from the sunlight but something inside had stopped me. Somewhere in my heart urged me to open my eyes. My heartbeat sounds like an alarm clock.

Just then, my insides are starting to stir alert and awake fully. I am sensing a breath beside me. I stopped believing in ghosts and the paranormal when I was young but I am sure that the sound of breathing I am hearing is not hallucination.

My eyes are no longer constricted by my lids. I can see my small, brown couch that I haven’t dusted for weeks and my shelf that is filled with space encyclopedias. I shift my body to the other side.

And that’s when I saw her.

Love.

My long-lost Love that I had been yearning for. Heaven knows how much I miss her kisses, her touch and even if I find another woman, her’s would always be different.

I am surprised and I rub my eyes. I am positive I did not take drugs or any medication that causes fantasies. Is this really happening? I am also certain I did not go somewhere last night besides the laboratory. All of my female colleagues are taken and married. I would not dare bring a female co-worker home or even someone I met from the club. I don’t even go to clubs.

This is Love. I am sure of it. This is Love. But how did she get here? She is dead. Her body was never found but we are all sure she is dead. I just can’t believe this.

Love is sleeping soundly; her light snores are heard by my ears. I reached to touch her hair and caress it. It is so smooth and soft. I tuck a strand behind her ear. It is real. I can touch her. Love is real and she is alive. 

If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up anymore.

She stirred and her eyes opened. The eyes the color of Venus. This is really her!

“Mingyu, what are you doing?” she asks and stifles in a small, breathy laugh. She looks so angelic that she belongs to heaven. Love is what I consider to be a heavenly body. An intergalactic God’s gift in human form. Her heart and mind is bigger than the space, brighter than the stars.

“Love, it’s really you,” I declare. I am still dumbfounded by all of this.

Love is wearing a white nightgown, it matches her so well, it was like God dropped her from the clouds. Her scent was nice and sweet and it reminded me of daisies and peaches in summer. The sun rays are hitting her face and illuminating her eyes. She never looked more beautiful.

“I didn’t go anywhere,” she pulls my hand even closer to her face and kisses my palm with her lips. It was light and I felt a hundred supernovas explode on my stomach. It was one of the effects she has on me.

“You were assigned in New York last month,” I am trying to prove a point that there was a time she was not here with me physically. The fact that she is here with me still baffles me.

Love puts her palm on my forehead, her face contorts to the expression of worry. “Are you okay? Do you have a fever? I” it is a joke. I laugh. “I went home last week, remember? You even fetched me from the airport,” she adds. I still can’t believe she’s here. Just yesterday, I watched the alignment without her.

The alignment. Without her. The effects.

Is this the effect of the alignment? What kind of an effect is this? Is this something science can explain?

She watches as my face fill with a pale color. What should I do now? Is this temporary? Is this permanent? Does she even know she was dead? Is this even my reality now?

“Oh no, Mingyu, are you okay? Do you want to see a doctor?” Love decides to lift her upper body and tuck her knees to her chest.

Am I hallucinating? I know, I should freak out and maybe call the police. Maybe this a look-a-like—maybe this is a stalker—maybe this a serial killer who wants to kill me and steal things from me. But weirdly, I don’t feel worry or discomfort or any type of those feelings. I am positive I will not end up on tomorrow’s news.

I should be suspicious of her and question everything around me but I just can’t. I think this is the Heaven’s gift to me and I think I should cherish it than jump to unnecessary conclusions. I know Love won’t last forever and I should make the most out of it as much as I can.

“No, I’m okay,” I answer, “I think I’m a little stressed from yesterday.” Love turns her head on me, her hair cascading down her body frames her face perfectly. “In that case,” she smiles, “I will make you a breakfast.” I smile back at her, “if that’s what you want.”

You see, Love does whatever she wants. If she sees and knows I’m tired, she cooks me breakfast, eggs with runny yolk, hash browns, and two, full, round pieces of buttermilk pancakes with warm milk as my drink, my favorite. She never asked me if those breakfast foods are my favorite, she just knows, she had observed it, I think. Breakfast meals are the best type of meals.

Love’s favorite was dinner. I had never confirmed to her if that was her favorite but based on my observations and calculations, she is fond of grilled steaks, mac and cheese, and other dinner type foods. I had told her once that breakfast is the best but she disagreed. What surprised me was that she did not say dinner trumps over breakfast but she told me that I should not categorize foods based on what time should we eat them. She made a valid point. We can all eat cereals at night just like how we can say that we can also see stars in the morning because the sun is a star.

I decided to call Wonwoo while Love is cooking. The smell of hash browns being fried are already filling my nostrils. I can now feel my stomach grumbling but I’m going to spend my last bit of pre-eating energy in calling my friend. After three rings, Wonwoo picks up quick. This friend of mine sleeps with his phone beside him.

“Good morning, Wonwoo,” I greet. He is not in my house but I can see him rubbing his eyes and scratching his head.

“Mornin’, Mingyu,” he greets back. His voice was a little raspy; obvious that I had woken him up. Almost all people will get mad at you when you wake them up but not Wonwoo. For years, I had served like an alarm clock for him. Whenever I call him, it was a signal for him to finally get up and take a bath.

“What’s the problem?” he does not hesitate to ask. We had been friends for so long that he can sense my doubts from a mile away.

I sigh, “Love is here.” I said it in a very cool, calm, collected way.

Laughing noises are heard in the other line. Is this guy thinking I’m joking? He must think I’m a psycho now. 

“Of course, Love’s there,” he says, “you picked her up from the airport last week.” I hold my phone closer and more firmly to my ears. I cannot believe what I am hearing. I don’t know what’s real anymore. Did Love really died? Was I in a coma and this is my reality? I think of a way to clear up my situation without sounding like I belong in a maximum-level mental ward.

“When’s the alignment again?” and I can’t believe this is the best one I have thought of. I can’t take it back now. It was now said.

“Are you okay? You are not that forgetful,” I can hear Wonwoo’s concern from his voice, “but the alignment is two days from now.”

“Okay. I was making sure of it,” I say, “I’m going to hang up now. Have a great day, Wonwoo.”

“You too, Mingyu.”

I end the call and go straight to my phone’s internet browser. I am thinking I may be onto something. In college, we had taken up the topic of parallel universes—there might be other universes out there besides ours. There is a concept that in these universes, our lives, based by our choices, may play out differently.

Am I in a parallel universe right now? If I am, the Mingyu in this universe is quite lucky to still have the Love of his life right by his side. My original universe might have wanted me to suffer… or to teach me a lesson.

I type in the date of the plane crash incident that Love apparently was on. The first search result is a link that details all the news and events that happened on that date. I press the link and it redirected me to the site.

My eyes thoroughly kept scanning the news site. Once. Then twice. Then thrice. I even tried out to search the keywords ‘plane crash’ on the site itself but still nothing. I go to other sites. I try out different keywords. I check the airlines’ website and read their Wikipedia page for other clues.

But in this universe, the plane crash did not happen.

I am not saying I am not happy. I really am. There is nothing more than I could wish for than to be with my Love again but I can’t help but think how did this happen? Why am I the only one still remembering things? Why did this happen to me? Do I have the option to stay here and be with her forever?

“Mingyu!” Love calls me from the kitchen. “Our food is ready!”

My stomach will soon be satisfied but I am still left with more questions than answers than ever before.


	4. the fourth.

I almost forgot how to spend a day with someone you love, how time flies with someone you truly adore, how your body and your heart feels when you are with her.

Earlier in this Sunday morning, after our usual routine, Love asked me to go to the playground. I distinctly remember the night when we became so vulnerable to each other as we watched the stars twinkle in the sky. I pointed her Orion’s belt with my three hands. Orion’s belt is a marker to find other stars. It is the landmark. With pointing the Three Kings, I identified Rigel, Bellatrix, and Betelgeuse.

“I feel like I’m the personification of Betelgeuse sometimes,” I said to her, the cold wind brushing against my skin. I lent her my jacket earlier when I noticed she felt chilly, her hairs raised on her arms. “Why?” she gave the signal for me to continue. I pointed the star, Betelgeuse, again.

“That is a pulsating star,” I put down my hand in my lap and quickly peeped at her expression. Her eyes seemed fixated on the star that I pointed. I moved the swing a little making the chains squeak. It had just rained in the afternoon. The air smelled of petrichor and wet rust but with her by my side, spring flowers and a hint of vanilla dominated my sense of smell. There were red buckets and plastic shovels left on the sandbox by the kids just like an unfinished business.

“It’s very close but it doesn’t shine as much as other stars. It’s also in its final stage and can explode any time,” I steered away from seriousness territory with a dash of fatalistic humor. Love did not try to console me nor provoke me from saying anything of the matter, instead she said, “I think you are more of a Rigel because it’s a little bluer.” That’s when I realized we share the same wavelengths of humor.

After the playground, which was quite uneventful considering how many noisy children were round that time that I couldn’t get a quiet, alone time with her because she spent the whole time playing with the kids, we went to a quaint coffee house nearby.

The interiors did the intention of making you feel right at home but at the same time, bringing you something new with the beige-painted walls, gray-quilted sofa covers, and the all familiar aroma of grinded coffee. She had pasta and I had an exquisite baked good that was so good that the custard certainly melted right into my mouth.

She talked about her experiences in New York; the people she got along with, the people she didn’t really liked, the commute, the food, the lights, the air, the pollution, the trash, the sights, the views—everything. I like seeing her eyes sparkle when she talks about what she loves and silently suffer with her when she goes on about what she hates. In that moment, it sank in. I missed her.

We exited the coffee house after eating and started to stroll along the street. There were many stores open. Those three bookshops lined up with each other were open, the bistro was open, and there were many people crowding to get to the places.

There was this one vintage shop where we always went to. I love vintage things because I am person who vicariously lives through nostalgia. I feel like I had lived in the 1960s when I buy something from the 1960s, even more when I get to know the story of that specific thing.

The vintage shop owner was a 60-something British man with balding hair. The lack of his hair on the top made up with the long, white beard he was sporting. He made it required that whenever he finds something vintage or a person makes him sell a vintage item that he must know the item’s backstory. This is why this his shop is my favorite. It just doesn’t sell me a thing, it gives me the whole story of it.

“Say,” Love held my hand in hers while walking, the feeling of warmth creeping on me, like the cup of coffee I had in the morning, “you want to go to Mr. Adley’s vintage shop?”

“Sure, why not,” I replied. We made a left turn on the street and quickly spotted the wooden sign for the vintage shop. We were both curious on why wasn’t Mr. Adley’s turned on. Had something happened?

Love and I shuffled closer to the store. No lights were turned on. There were also no items on the display window. Upon closer look, there were also no things inside as if there was no trace, no evidence that the shop existed. The only thing left was the wooden sign hanging. My heart sank with the realization that maybe the shop had finally closed its doors forever.

“Are you looking for Mr. Adley?” a man about his 30s poked my shoulder. He must have seen me scanning the empty store. “Yes, actually,” I showed a meek smile. “I’m the keeper of the gift shop next door. Mr. Adley went to New York about a week ago and he never came back. Next thing I know, his family from Kensington was taking out all the goods from the store. I never really know what happened but I think his shop is now closed for good. They are taking the sign away tomorrow,” the man spoke. I was on loss for words and my heart started beating faster. I had a hunch that Mr. Adley encountered some unfortunate circumstance. “That’s too bad,” I can only say. “Yeah, kid,” the man patted my shoulder and went on his way. I can’t believe that my favorite vintage shop is gone. Just like that.

The world is so cruel. One day, it’s going to give you this beautiful light—this beautiful gift of life and the next day, it’s all taken away from you. It’s like giving you something you love but for only temporary. Only temporary.

Love comforted me on the evening by making some comfort food and getting me a glass of warm milk. We watched television re-runs of her favorite sitcom together on the sofa. All the time we were watching, our hands were interlaced. It made everything all right again.

The glow of the television screen made me see her side profile. She looked beautiful as always and I cannot control myself. With my free hand, I reached to cup her face and plant a kiss on her lips. I sensed she wanted it too when she pulled me closer to her and made our tongues danced.

The laughing track of the sitcom were dead to my ears and all I can hear was the rapid palpitations of my heart as I remove her clothes from her body.


End file.
